Corset Strings
by True Colours
Summary: Shortly after the establishment of the Dual Monarchy, Hungary requests  demands  some help with her corset...


**Pulling Strings**

**A/N: Ciao and good evening to you. This fic, which may or may not have been inspired by the Corset Scene in Black Butler, was forcibly commissioned by my sister Essence of Gold, at the weekend, using the excuse that it was her birthday back in February. I must say, I think I've done a pretty good job of a) finishing promptly and b) keeping it a oneshot within the meaning of the act. And I didn't even cheat with flashbacks or anything. Go me!**

**Anyway, the title is maybe a reference to doing up corsets and also pulling strings in relationships or politics or something, or maybe it's just a spur-of-the-moment label because it's after ten for the third night in a row and I'm tired. I'm not entirely sure this was an intra-sibling bunny, and if it hadn't been I'd have probably tried to make it kinkier. Don't get excited, gentle readers, I have no great skill in this area. I would just have used the word 'thrusting' or something like that. **

Austria opened his eyes.

They were met by the dusty green velvet canopy of the bed. Nothing unusual about that. It was the smell that was different: the subtle but all-pervading scent of a woman in his bedchamber, that was always on the edge of his consciousness and had twisted itself into his dreams, so that he felt distinctly unrested even after a long night's sleep. He fancied that the bed was a little warmer, too, than when he slept alone, even though they lay on opposite sides, the cool silk sheets crumpled between them. Not that they hadn't…touched, and far more besides, but Hungary would never let herself fall asleep in his arms. With this nation, so disconcertingly light-hearted and charming on the surface, strung with knife-steel and wild as the hills, the act of love could be a minor battle in itself. _Alliance_, her every action seemed to state. _Two nations co-operating for mutual benefits, _not_ me surrendering,_ not_ you in charge, and _I call the shots!

She was stunning, yes, but living in a permanent state of sexual tension was beginning to wear on his nerves.

The sunlight had been creeping across the room while he mused, and now, beside him, Hungary stirred and rolled over. Austria sighed; once she was awake she always sprang straight out of bed, and if they both tried to move around the room getting ready at the same time, he would have to be careful not to do anything that could possibly be construed as staring, or face the consequences. On the other hand, if he leapt up before she got fully awake, she would wait in bed until he was ready, but be fuming when she came out. There was only one recourse. He was going to have to lie where he was, with his nose buried in the pillow, until his ally was dressed.

There was a rustle of bedclothes as Hungary stretched and then climbed out of bed. Lying on his belly with his head on his arm, Austria glanced sidelong as she walked to the dressing-table, her long lace nightgown slipping a little off one shoulder, and began to brush out her hair. He closed his eyes briefly, remembering that hair: its softness, the unexplained warmth of its touch when it tumbled around his shoulders as they embraced…moving to the foot of the bed, and thus out of his line of vision, Hungary took her underclothes from the carved oak wardrobe and began to dress.

Austria hooked his fingers together above his head and stretched, cat-like, his face pressed into the pillow. He was waking up more thoroughly now, and looking forward to the morning: a cup of hot strong coffee and fresh pastries for breakfast, a perusal of the newspaper and a little light piano practise before he took a turn around the yard to watch the cadets at their training…just as long as Hungary didn't drag him into the fencing ring again and batter bruises on bruises across his shoulders and rap him on the knuckles with the flat of her blade with no respect for his musician's fingers –

'Roderich.' A stern voice cut through his thoughts. 'Get up.'

'Of course,' he said, not bothering to broach a futile argument about the problems of dressing at the same time.

'Maybe foppish young men are in the habit of lying in bed all day in Vienna, but –'

'Alright, I'm up, I'm up!' he protested, hauling himself upright.

'Good. Come here, I need you to help me get my _atkozott_ corset on.'

Austria sighed. This again.

'Why do you wear it if you hate it so much?' he asked, not _exactly_ dragging his feet as he made his way over to her.

'I didn't make the rules,' Hungary said, fitting the whalebone basque over her torso and flicking the tapes together behind her back in a loose single knot. 'But Prussia's face when he realises I can beat him _without_ breathing makes it all worth it.' She turned her back on him and took a firm grip on the bedpost. 'Come on, pull.'

Austria squared up to her, flexing his fingers as he eyed the panels of sheer, dove-grey satin, and the gap of creamier skin between them. Hungary shifted impatiently. He took hold of the corset strings, looped them twice around his fingers for security and jerked, hard.

'Uhn!' Hungary grunted as the corset tightened. Austria reeled the tapes in and pulled again, steadfastly ignoring the effect the tightening was having on her figure. Her breasts in particular…

'Harder,' Hungary ordered, clinging grimly to the bedpost. Austria pulled once more on the first set of tapes, lashed them securely and moved on to the second. Hungary's breathing was growing heavier, but at the same time more shallow as the corset tightened. Austria tugged the corset strings in inch by inch, ruthlessly fighting her pumping ribs.

'Come on, harder…damn it…OW!' Austria gave a particularly savage tug, Hungary kicked out and both of them yelped at the same moment.

'That was my shin!' Austria protested, bending down to rub his leg.

'Oh, man up!' Hungary growled. Austria heaved his third sigh of the morning and began on the strings that defined the inward curve of her waist.

'Owww,' Hungary complained as her diaphragm was compressed. 'Can't…breathe…'

'Your idea,' Austria reminded her, pulling. His hands were very close to the small of her back now, cinching the ribbons in by small degrees, grasping them firmly so that they couldn't slip back.

'Yes…I know,' Hungary nodded, less vocal in her complaints as her breathing grew more restricted. Austria hauled back on the tapes. 'Alright…I think that's enough – _OY_!'

Austria's final yank brought him right up against her, and for a moment he caught the scent of the sheen of sweat that had broken out over her skin as he wrestled her full curves and warrior's muscles into the corset. A soft billow of hair brushed his cheek. It would have been easy to turn and bury his face in the side of her neck.

'There.' He rested his hand on her waist for a moment. 'Now you're perfect.' He moved away, fetched his clothes and opened the door to the powder room. 'I'm going to shave.'

Loosely clasping the bedpost and doing her best to pant, Hungary stood where she was. She felt as though she had been punched in the stomach.

_There. Now you're perfect_.

So another quarter of an inch off her waist and she was flawless. And what was she before? Ugly, graceless, plump, coarse, burly, unfeminine, wild…a rough nomadic savage, too unrefined for his cultured cosmopolitan palate?

_That_ bastard!

It was hard to howl in a corset, so she settled for a couple of angry sniffs and a brusque wipe of the eyes before she pulled herself together and set about the remainder of dressing.

_He can be a foppish, sly, stab-in-the-back jerk if he wants, _she thought angrily,_ I don't expect miracles, but what I wouldn't give for a decent lungful of air…!_

It was going to be a long day.

She stepped out into the hallway, trying to wipe the glower off her face and failing, but at least remembering not to slam the door behind her. She made her way down the panelled passage to the centre of the country villa she and Austria were inhabiting, where, it being summer, she could take breakfast in the courtyard. A breath of fresh air always helped to make her feel better.

She stepped out into the sunshine, and immediately an Austrian maidservant, a middle-aged woman whom Hungary seemed to have convinced that she was a winsome young girl in need of clucking over, came hurrying up.

'Guten Morgen; did you sleep well, Miss Hungary? May I serve you a little breakfast; some fresh fruit, or perhaps one of those almond croissants you are so fond of…'

'Y-yes, please,' she managed to say, reasonably steadily. 'Thank you, that would be lovely.'

The maidservant bustled off, and Hungary turned just in time to see Austria stepping out of the villa, his long blue coat draped over one arm. He was freshly shaven, and a sparkle of moisture that the towel had missed still clung to his jaw.

He laid his coat over the back of one of the breakfast chairs, then raised his hands to straighten his collar. He hadn't done up his cuff links yet, and one of the lace-trimmed sleeves fell back, exposing the dark hairs that stopped just short of the backs of his hands. Hungary felt her stomach clench at the sight, remembering the first night of their alliance, when she'd run her fingers through that hair and laughed inwardly at all Prussia's ridiculous misconceptions about who, out of him and Austria, was the truer man.

'A lovely morning, isn't it,' he said conventionally, walking towards her. Then he stopped and looked at her properly. 'Elizabeta, are you alright?'

Dammit, she had let her eyes get red after all! Quickly Hungary dropped her head and let her hair swing down on either side of her face, delicate, deferential, feminine.

'Oh yes,' she assured him. 'My corset was troubling me a little; that's all.'

'Ah,' he said. She looked up just in time to catch his swift glance left and right, but not in time to interpret it, before he grasped her shoulder and kissed her full on the mouth.

His touch was like lightning. She gasped, forgetting everything, forgetting that she was in high dudgeon – _stupid, manipulative jerk_ – as she tightened her fingers in his shaggy hair. Because that was what it was, despite all his posturing. Shaggy. She loved its coarse texture, almost like a horse's mane. A tall, clean-lined, jet-black stallion.

His long fingers, so skilful and delicate in everything they did, were curled round the back of her neck, but then all too soon he was pulling away. Hungary stood breathless, blinking, struggling for a moment to remember that she had to pull herself back into some semblance of propriety before the servants returned, rather than leaning after him with lips parted and yearning. Austria brushed a lock of hair away from her face, never relaxing his intense violet stare. Then, as the door swung open, releasing a babble of voices from the kitchen, he leaned in again and gave her a swift, gentlemanly kiss on the cheek.

'Cheer up, Elizabeta,' he said loudly as the maidservant approached. And then he inclined his head and added softly,

'Just think of how much you're going to enjoy taking it off tonight.'

***_végén_***

_Atkozott – damn_

**A/N: Gosh I love Austria. First in 'Say Yes' and now in this. He is just so much fun to write.**

**Ciao!**

**True xxx**


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